Finding work for idle hands: making, baking and more.

We’ve been having a perfect Christmas Eve. All the shopping was already done, so this morning we only had to venture out for the newspaper. I savoured this fact while we watched people milling around the shops with that vague hint of panic in their eyes.

While we waited for my parents to arrive for lunch, we listened to Christmas music (I am beyond thrilled with my recently-acquired Christmas music. I made a mix of alternative festive songs, featuring the Ramones, Caitlin Rose, Ryan Adams, Smashing Pumpkins, and so on, and it’s changed how I feel about Christmas music. Which is to say there’s a lot of it that I try to avoid hearing.) It wasn’t what you’d call a traditional Christmas meal, but it was stress-free and all the more fun as a result. We had pizza, and Nigella Lawson’s girdlebuster pie (which I had made last weekend). If you ever make this pie, do not cover it in clingfilm once you’ve poured on the butterscotch topping – the butterscotch will stick to the clingfilm, and you will spend ages trying to save it before the ice cream melts.

After lunch – also cheating on tradition – we exchanged and OPENED presents. On Christmas Eve! Outrageous! (Well, not in some countries. But certainly a cause for eyebrows to be raised here in England.)

The beautifully-wrapped presents you can see here came from my mother, and they were so pretty I was a little reluctant to open them. The one on the top of the pile is wrapped in a map from the little part of Switzerland we like to visit, and inside was a 1940s book about Switzerland. There was an inscription inside which made clear that it has been given as a Christmas present before, to someone’s father, back in 1946. Lovely to think that more than 50 years on, it has become a Christmas present once again.

I can remember one Christmas in my early teens, I made what seemed like miles of paper chains to decorate my bedroom for Christmas. I made them from the pages of Smash Hits – British readers may well remember this fortnightly music magazine. I thought my paper chains were the bees’ knees – they were certainly an excellent complement to the silver tinsel Christmas tree I had (Woolworth’s finest…).

For you, I have upped the stakes a little and made two sets of patterns that you can download, so hopefully one of them will match your chosen Christmas colourscheme. You can also mix and match the sets.

I made myself a set this afternoon, and it’s a really simple project to sit and do – all you need is to print out one or both of the PDFs below, then cut up the strips and use glue or double-sided tape to stick them together. If you have children who could do with being occupied for half an hour or so, this is a good project for them.

Thank you for visiting me here at Busywork this year. I love to get your emails and comments, and I’m grateful for your company. I hope you have a lovely Christmas, that all your baking turns out as you hoped, that Father Christmas makes it down your chimney without causing any damage, and that your relatives are on their best behaviour.

The internet is awash with lovely Christmas things this year. My very favourite thing so far, which happens to be free, is Caitlin’s Rose’s Christmas song, You Never Come Home for Christmas. I have been listening to it on repeat, and while I’m the only one in the house, I have been singing along rather loudly. You can download it for free here. I was lucky enough to meet Caitlin Rose after her show in Nottingham earlier this year, and it made my week. If you’ve not heard her music yet, you can listen to it on her website.

I had already made a Christmas stocking containing a hot chocolate kit before I saw Megan’s latest project, but I wish I’d seen it sooner as it would fit into a Christmas stocking much more neatly than the things I put together. I will remember it for next year.

Technically this is from last Christmas, but it stands up to repeat viewings: the Simon’s Cat christmas tree cartoon. If you have ever lived with a cat, you will no doubt have experienced something very similar.

I am going to spare myself the stress that making this Yule Log would no doubt entail, but I have enjoyed looking at it. Perhaps I will buy one instead. I do plan to make Nigella Lawson’s Girdlebuster Pie though – I will let you know how it turns out.

And last but by no means least, my very talented friend Eloise has had tea towels made using her artwork. They are made here in England,which I find reassuring in these dark days when jobs are thin on the ground. Most importantly, they are lovely – I imagine most people wouldn’t dream of using them to dry their dishes!

Christmas started to happen this week, as far as I’m concerned. I went to a carol concert on Tuesday night (more on that another day) and last night hit the town for a festive meal out with friends. The same group of us went out for a meal this time last year, when England was covered in snow. That time, we left the restaurant at around 11pm to find that everything was white, and thick, fluffy snowflakes were continuing to fall. People were having snowball fights in the street. It was a difficult journey home – thankfully this year it was dry and bright.

In the interests of not always ordering from the same small range of drinks every time I go out, last night I asked the waitress for drink suggestions, and she came up with a good one: Disaronno and cranberry juice. It tastes like a cherry bakewell – but with alcohol.

I haven’t been spending all my time drinking: there has been good progress with the Christmas preparations too. The lights are up. Some of the cards are written. Things have been posted to far-flung places. All of the parcels have been wrapped (well, with the exception of a couple more that I bought this week. I find the problem with getting things ready early for Christmas is that I often end up spending more overall, because I continue to see things I think people will like, and so I keep buying).

I have even done some sewing: I made a Christmas stocking as a gift for a friend. I used some grey velvet fabric from Ikea, with red ribbon at the top. It is not very photogenic, for some reason, but in person it looks very nice and I am pleased with it (you can see it here). I’m going to fill it with hot chocolate mix, Flakes, and marshmallows. I based the shape of the stocking on this excellent free pattern from Denyse Schmidt, but rather than a quilted stocking, I just made a plain one, with a cotton lining. (As ever when I try to make things with a lining, I sat for a very long time working out which way round everything needed to be sewn, so that when turned right side out there would be no visible stitching and everything would be facing the right way. It was a huge relief to get this right first time round on this project – I have had to unpick things and redo them in the past.)

I have a couple of other projects planned: some lavender pillows, and another free paper chain pattern for you. Like the Halloween paper chains I made, it will be a free PDF that you can print out, cut up, and turn into paper chains for your house/office. I have been consulting with my creative director (hello Mother!) on what patterns and colours to use, and will be getting to work on that over the weekend.